Juno News - Taxpayer advocates launch campaign for Albertans to fight equalization

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.280 and joining me now to talk about this campaign is the campaign director of fight equalization

00:00:13.020 also the alberta director for the canadian taxpayers federation kevin lacy kevin thanks

00:00:18.220 for coming on today andrew thanks for having me so we've got a few weeks left until the

00:00:23.320 referendum for those who haven't been following it here i know the question is about removing it

00:00:28.120 from the constitution but but fundamentally what is really at play here for people fundamentally it's

00:00:33.740 about the unfairness of the equalization formula to the province of alberta and what the problem is

00:00:39.840 is that alberta for years has been contributing far more than we've been getting back and you

00:00:45.860 would think that that good that that contributing that amount of money would buy you some goodwill

00:00:50.980 that it would get you something in return and instead all we've gotten as a result of all

00:00:55.860 those contributions is we've seen our energy blocked in respect to pipelines we've battled with

00:01:02.060 british colombia and quebec both with regards to getting those pipelines built we've seen a carbon

00:01:07.900 tax from ottawa so we keep contributing and contributing and contributing and and being

00:01:13.620 generous yet at the same time uh provinces in the federal government are basically sticking it to us

00:01:20.020 uh and not and not giving us the things that we need to succeed yeah and i think quebec is a

00:01:26.000 particularly notable example of this the quebec government even an ostensibly conservative

00:01:30.520 government in quebec has come in with a very anti-canadian energy agenda and plan we have

00:01:36.160 the premier francois legault calling alberta oil dirty energy yet quebec still insists on the money

00:01:42.820 from alberta that only comes generally speaking because of the success of this sector well that's exactly

00:01:48.760 right and you know so the entire equalization envelope is about 20 billion dollars quebec gets

00:01:54.820 about 13 billion of that which means they get 65 percent of all the equalization dollars and to put

00:02:01.640 that in perspective each quebec resident that equals about fifteen hundred dollars per person that's a lot

00:02:08.700 of money that quebec is getting from the rest of canada at the same time then quebec while it takes this

00:02:14.920 amount of money uh from canada rejects canada's resources and rejects particularly alberta's

00:02:21.540 resources the one that's contributing a large portion of that money to it imagine if it was if

00:02:27.060 uh andrew you were meeting your friends and you were generous enough to uh provide them um some extra

00:02:34.720 little extra cash and then you ask them for a little favor and they told you to go to go pound sand

00:02:39.100 that's essentially what quebec is doing to alberta and for years we've cut alberta's just kind of put

00:02:45.120 up with it and sure they've made a few statements here and there this goes way back to peter laugheed

00:02:50.000 in the 1980s uh when laugheed uh during both the charlatan accord and the mitch lake accord put his foot

00:02:56.180 down and said that alberta wasn't going to contribute more than their fair share uh but yet it continued

00:03:01.600 uh then ralph klein came in he stood up to ottawa but then the payments kept continued uh after klein

00:03:09.120 then the government changed and even premier notley who was an ndp uh premier she put her foot down and

00:03:15.460 said this equalization formula is not fair to alberta and nothing ever changed so to jason kenny's credit

00:03:21.720 uh the current premier of alberta uh he's decided that look enough is enough uh we can keep going to

00:03:29.060 canada and complaining about the equalization form and complaining about what quebec saying

00:03:33.360 but we're not getting anywhere so we need to go out and have this referendum which is happening on

00:03:38.360 october 18th and show canada that albertans are mad that their money is being mistreated and they want

00:03:45.300 to see real change and to be honest at this point i'm not sure what is really left for the government

00:03:50.600 of alberta to do they're really at a last straw and this is a last ditch effort to try to make some

00:03:56.280 real changes is the issue the formula for equalization or the existence of equalization

00:04:02.280 itself with the caveat for those not familiar that actually getting rid of it would require

00:04:07.160 a constitutional amendment but amending the formula is actually relatively simple yeah i think the i think

00:04:13.060 for us in particular what we want to see is reform of the system uh and we also i think a lot of this

00:04:19.160 andrew is actually political which is we want to assert uh what the grievance of alberta is in the

00:04:26.160 hope that recipient provinces will understand the position of the province and start to embrace some

00:04:32.660 of the things uh that is allowing this money to come into their province so really what i think we're

00:04:37.920 looking for is some goodwill on behalf of many of these premiers uh who are sticking it to alberta

00:04:43.460 um so reform is part of it the the equalization question actually asks do we support removing the

00:04:50.380 constitution uh removing equalization from the constitution um and i think that's really the

00:04:56.880 whole point of that is to just kind of lay the marker for what alberta expects in the upcoming years

00:05:02.500 with regards to continued negotiations on equalization yeah and one thing that i think is important to

00:05:08.860 point out here is that alberta has obviously had some great times over the years but

00:05:12.600 in the last few years with a downturn in the sector uh the oil and gas sector which is the the

00:05:17.900 predominant source of wealth in alberta things have been a bit tough but the province has still

00:05:21.960 been on the hook for equalization in those uh in those more difficult years yeah and that's been a

00:05:26.680 really tough pill to swallow because you haven't like over the last six and a half year alberta has

00:05:32.180 really had a rough go and many you know at one point we were in double digits in unemployment

00:05:37.040 one of the highest unemployment rates in all of canada highest unemployment rates in all of canada

00:05:42.280 um so we've had a really rough time some of that is as a result of uh poor man poor policies out of

00:05:49.560 ottawa some of that is also uh related outside the border which is just the cost of energy um the price

00:05:56.740 of oil um but family severe had a really hard time they had the province has not had the money to fund

00:06:03.420 say schools and hospitals uh and building new roads yet they see down uh a few you know down a few

00:06:11.540 flights away in quebec things are going really really well and meanwhile our money when it's

00:06:16.960 needed here at home is going to a province like quebec which is which doesn't need it so that's

00:06:22.660 the type of reform that i think um we need to see and i think if you're one of those families that's

00:06:27.820 struggling to make ends meet and watching your tax dollars go to other parts of the country while at

00:06:32.140 the same time your schools are suffering um you've got a big problem with that yeah and and i know that

00:06:38.340 just looking at the numbers here you mentioned how much the average quebecer or how much it works

00:06:42.740 out to be on average that a quebecer is receiving from this on the flip side of it you have the

00:06:47.520 average albertan uh being uh being having to pay six hundred dollars i believe it is on this three

00:06:53.340 billion dollars a year that the province is spending and if you're an alberta taxpayer that's

00:06:57.500 three billion that's not going to fix the roads that's not going into the health care system which

00:07:01.420 we've been hearing a lot about in alberta that's not going into schools that's a lot of money

00:07:05.360 yeah and then the fiscal situation here isn't that hot either um and you know that's maybe a

00:07:11.240 debate for another show of how we ended up there um but given that's that alberta families are

00:07:16.980 struggling themselves and i think if we most families and most albertans are willing to be

00:07:22.520 generous with the rest of the country they have been for for many many years um but given these

00:07:27.480 tough times when everyone else is cutting back the equalization formula actually with the way it's set

00:07:33.580 up is going to increase over the next few years so this commitment um that albertans are under at a

00:07:39.380 time when they don't have any money is actually just increasing um and that may puts a strain on

00:07:44.400 the public services even higher uh and makes it more difficult to take that these that this money is

00:07:49.420 being sent to ottawa so let's talk about the the campaign itself i'm assuming you're doing more than

00:07:54.060 just chatting with me although i love having you on the show uh what are you going to be doing

00:07:57.820 between now and october 18th so we've launched uh a separate we're we've launched a separate society

00:08:03.700 called society for um albertans against equalization uh we're going to be heading out and campaigning on

00:08:09.800 the road uh trying to convince albertans to vote yes in this referendum um to remove equalization

00:08:16.140 from the constitution uh we've just launched new radio ads um that are on our website feel free to

00:08:21.920 check them out um that are uh that are talking about this issue our new billboards will be going

00:08:27.040 up later on in the week um and we'll be continuing to do things like you and i are doing today and

00:08:31.940 just to try to talk to more and more canadians and more and more particularly albertans about getting

00:08:36.920 out to vote on october 18th voting yes in the uh referendum and finally standing up for alberta so

00:08:44.820 that alberta can make a stand and don't continually see our money go uh to when our money is not

00:08:51.000 respected and what constitutes a win for you on this i think look i think we're going to have to

00:08:57.340 see election night what the win is um these cause let's be honest uh referendums in canada are always

00:09:03.880 unpredictable and there's a lot of uh politics going on in alberta that's far uh outside of the

00:09:10.820 referendum um but really anything over 50 is a victory for us yeah that's the majority of albertan

00:09:16.540 saying that they can't really abide by the status quo so very well said you can find out

00:09:20.980 more about the campaign at fightequalization.ca kevin lacy is the campaign director and alberta

00:09:26.680 director for the canadian taxpayers federation kevin thanks for coming on today good to talk

00:09:30.800 to you as always thanks for having me thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support

00:09:35.100 the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

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Juno News - September 29, 2021

Taxpayer advocates launch campaign for Albertans to fight equalization

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